


The Rise of Stella Gibson: Part 3

by SmokeMonsterSyd



Series: The Rise of Stella Gibson [3]
Category: The Fall (TV 2013)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-05-21 22:22:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14923964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmokeMonsterSyd/pseuds/SmokeMonsterSyd
Summary: This is the third, and final part in The Rise of Stella Gibson series. A series of flashbacks reveal the different events in Stella's life that she deems influential for her personality.





	1. Chapter 1

The air in the office seems a little stiff. A lot more stiff than it should be, in Stella’s opinion. The atmosphere is like gelatin, the pale green walls reminding her of jello as she looks around the room and observes, the thing she does the best. She pretends like this is another crime scene, except this time she's the victim, and she wonders what her fellow peers will find once she's gone and all that's left is the evidence in this room.

 

“Stella?”

 

She turns her head back towards the voice, towards the women she’s sure is going to break her and leave her for dead. As if that hasn't happened to her before. 

 

“What are you thinking about?”

 

That's what she always asks when Stella is just a bit too quiet for too long. She wishes sometimes that she didn't have to pry, wishes that she would just ask if Stella was alright and then tell her that it was going to be okay when she admitted she wasn't sure. She takes one last quick look around the room before meeting her eyes, dark and questioning.

 

“I hate the color of this room,” she responds. 

 

Stella watches her bite her lip, trying not to laugh out loud, and Stella reacts with a small smile. 

 

“What were you thinking before that, then?”

 

Stella shrugs. “A lot of things.”

 

“List them out for me.”

 

She purses her lips and peers out the window overlooking the London streets. She watches a couple walk down the sidewalk across the street until they disappear around the corner before she decides to speak. 

 

“The summer after I got out of boarding school was one of the most difficult of my life, I think.”

 

“What made it the most difficult summer of your life?”

 

Stella shakes her head and traces her eyes along the creases between the bricks that make up the wall. There are multiple diplomas on the wall, and she sees them but doesn't really read them as she draws squiggles on the leather beneath her hands. 

 

“University after that was difficult, too,” she finally says.

 

“You didn't answer my question.”

 

Stella looks around the room before her eyes land on the clock above the door. 

 

“How much longer do we have?”

 

“You've only been here 10 minutes.”

 

Stella sighs. As she ages, the year seem to go faster and faster, but somehow an hour long therapy session feels like a month. 

 

“I made some...questionable decisions that summer.”

 

She looks back at her therapist, a small woman with dark hair and equally dark eyes. She has a very small, satisfied smile on her face, and Stella knows that she knows she has won the battle. 

 

“Tell me about them.”


	2. Chapter 2

Sweat. Everywhere.

 

His sweat mixes with hers and the chlorinated water across his chest, causing her fingers to slip down his chest and abs before teasing her center. He curls his fingers into her swimsuit as he grabs at her hips, trying to hold her down against him as she moves in his lap, and pushes up into her. There nothing but the sound of his swim shorts sliding along her thighs and their moans echoing around the empty pool deck, and she groans as she feels the wood of the lifeguard chair dig into her knees. Sweat drips down her back, pooling in her suit and causing her sweatshirt to stick to her back. Her hand moves quickly between her legs, occasionally grazing his length as it moves in and out, the pleasure building rapidly. 

 

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” he moans.

 

Stella rolls her eyes behind closed eyelids and presses her lips to his, hoping to keep him quiet. She knows what he thinks of her, he had been looking at her all day, and she had been looking at him. He was tall, had brown hair, your average young male, and she was in the mood. Why not.

 

“Shut up.”

 

He groans again and tries to pull her closer by digging his fingers into her backside. She holds in a small cry of pain as she thrusts her hips forward, the added sensation to her ass bringing her over the edge. She stills her hips as she tries to breathe, pressing her forehead to his shoulder, and sliding a hand into his hair. 

 

“No, don’t stop,” he moans so quietly, it almost sounds like a whimper. 

 

She sighs to herself before slowly moving her hips again and he lets out a grunt of relief into her ear. Despite the humidity of the pool deck, goosebumps rise along Stella’s skin and she shivers. She raises herself up on her knees a bit before pressing back into his thighs, only repeating the action when she feels him start to twitch underneath her. Without much thought, she bites into his bare shoulder and scratches at his scalp while moving her hips faster, her pleasure mounting again. He starts to meet her thrusts, panting like some kind of animal, and Stella has to bite harder on his shoulder to keep herself from saying something rude. With one final twitch, his hips still, and she can feel his rapid pulse inside of her. As he breathes harshly against her ear she has to keep herself from rolling her eyes, her hope of coming a second time dwindling with his energy. 

 

She wonders how exactly she got to this place, propositioning boys at her work and using them like this one. His eyes had been so beautiful as they followed her every move, his muscles rippling as he swam laps around the pool, clearly showing off. She had wanted him the moment their eyes met, not caring about his own intentions. Maybe she was genuinely attracted to him, maybe she liked the attention he gave her...maybe she had just had a hard week and wanted to forget her life. She wonders when she stopped noticing the difference. Either way, she was here now, sitting in a stranger’s lap as he pushed harsh breaths into her ear.  

 

She sits up, avoiding his gaze as she reached for her towel. She can see him smiling out of the corner of her eye as she wipes off her forehead and neck, taking in her form with his beautiful eyes. He slides his hands up her back, ghosting his fingers through the sweat that lingers there.

 

“You’re the hottest lifeguard I’ve ever seen,” he says with a chuckle.

 

Stella bites the inside of her cheek, stopping herself from scoffing, before lifting herself from his lap, moving her swimsuit back into place, and making her way down the stairs of the guard stand. She feels his eyes on her, and she can feel his slight annoyance from her less than enthusiastic response, but all she wants now is to go home and stare into oblivion. She swipes her shorts up off of the pool deck and quickly steps into them as she hears him make his way down the wooden steps. 

 

“Can I have your number?” he asks. His voice is close and she can feel the ghost of his fingers’ thoughts before they slide onto her body to hold her hips. 

 

“Why?” she asks, monotonously.

 

“So we can do this again,” he says, and she can hear the grin in his voice.

 

She zips up her sweatshirt before curtly replying, “No.”

 

She hears, rather than sees, his mouth open and close multiple times like a guppy. The pop of his lips reverberates off the walls around the pool before fading into silence.

 

“Why not?”

 

She cocks her head to the side slightly, as if thinking about her response and presses her lips into a line. 

 

“I have to go,” she says, instead. 

 

She picks up her bag and heads outside, ignoring his cries of protest.

 

“Can you at least tell me your name?”


	3. Chapter 3

She can smell the spices as soon as she opens the door, and her stomach flips with nausea. She wonders how fast she has to run up the stairs to prevent her from making a single sound and get her to her room before anyone knows she’s even home. As soon as the door closes, she hears the telling sound of footsteps coming in her direction and she knows she has no chance in avoiding her. 

 

“Stella?”

 

“I’m home,” Stella responds quietly. 

 

Anna, her longest lasting nanny, rounds the corner with a kind smile on her face, wiping her hands off on her apron. 

 

“Just in time. Come, sit.”

 

She gives Stella just enough time to drop her bag in the doorway before gently leading her by the arm into the kitchen and into a chair. Stella gently smiles at her as Anna runs a soft hand through her hair, then turns towards the stove and grabs a plate of food. It’s not much, a grilled cheese with some chili over rice, but something tells Stella that Anna has been working on this for the better part of the evening. 

 

“Anna, you really didn’t have to, I could have--”

 

“Mmhm, sure,” she responds, knowing Stella all too well. 

 

Stella swallows a small lump of emotion in her throat before picking up her spoon and sticking it into the chili. 

 

“Thank you,” she murmurs.

 

Anna smiles at her before pressing a soft kiss to her temple. “You’re welcome, love.”

 

Stella can’t help but hold back sudden tears. Anna was normally a very quiet woman, almost to the point where Stella wondered for a year if she even spoke English. Ever since she got back from boarding school and took on this summer job, Anna had been the closest thing to a helicopter parent that Stella had ever seen or experienced. Her bright green eyes and gentle Irish accent were the first things to greet her in the morning, and she was the last person she saw before going to bed. She hadn’t felt this much affection from a parental figure since before her father died. It was just a little too much for Stella to handle.

 

She took small, slow bites out of her food, avoiding Anna’s wary gaze as she watch Stella eat her meal. 

 

Stella shifts uncomfortably in her seat, feeling sweat start to form on her forehead from nervousness. Anna’s scrutinizing observation was starting to make her feel anxious, like maybe she had done something wrong, and she was bound to be reprimanded any minute. 

 

“How was work today?” Anna asks, breaking the silence.

 

Stella nods. “It was alright. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

 

“That’s good.”

 

Stella meets her eyes and they smile and nod at each other awkwardly. 

 

She presses her tongue into her cheek and tears her eyes away from Anna’s, looking at anything but her. 

 

“You don’t have to sit with me, you can go relax or--”

 

“Stella, I’m not stupid,” Anna says, softly.

 

“I just figured you would want to do some--”

 

“I pack your bag every day, Stella…”

 

Stella goes silent and stares into her chili. The reprimand she was expecting finally coming for her self-esteem. 

 

“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” she chokes out.

 

The tears come back again and Stella closes her eyes, hoping they will stay in place, and nods.

 

“Please finish your food,” Anna whispers. 

 

Stella nods again before picking up her grilled cheese and taking a small bite. 

 

“I’m not going to ask why because that’s your personal business, but I just want you to understand that I’ll be here when you want to talk about it.”

 

She stares at one spot on the marble table as she takes another bite, not responding, but hearing every word. 

 

“All I ask is that you try...okay?” 

 

Stella nods.

 

She feels Anna shift and press her warm body against Stella’s in a hug, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. The touch of her lips against her temple sends warmth to her stomach in a tingle that goes through her entire body. She wraps one arm around Anna’s waist and squeezes her back gently. 

 

“Thank you,” she rasps out.

 

“Of course.”


	4. Chapter 4

“What you just described to me sounds like food restriction, is that correct?”

 

Stella chews on her thumb nail and looks up at the ceiling without really seeing it. She's not sure why her therapist would be asking her this, isn't that what she was paying her to tell her? She abandons the thumb nail and swipes her tongue along her bottom lip, shrugging. 

 

“I'm not entirely sure what you mean,” she says, thoughtfully. 

 

“It's often a side effect of depression, which usually can lead to an eating disorder. It basically just means you refuse to eat because of some thought that says that you shouldn't.”

 

Stella nods. “So, I would say yes, it was food restriction.”

 

Her therapist nods before looking down at her legal pad and scribbling something on it. Stella wonders if some things she says are more important for notation than others, and do those things make her look worse or better on paper. Her dark hair falls slightly into her eyes and Stella watches as the delicate fingers on her free hand tuck the fly away strand behind her ear, never missing a beat in her writing. 

 

Without looking up, she says, “What about the sex, was that the first time you've ever done that sort of thing?”

 

“No,” Stella says, shaking her head, “There were many others before him that summer, but I remember him the most.”

 

“What made him more memorable than the others?”

 

Stella pauses, thinking about that boy. His looks were similar to plenty of other men she’s met in her life, but what made him so memorable? Was it the way he whined, begging her to let him come, the way he let her be in charge? Or was it that he asked for her number and was genuinely surprised when she said no, while all the others just accepted it? She really wasn't sure. 

 

“I don’t know. Maybe because he was the last one of the summer before I left that job,” she eventually responds, shrugging, and her therapist dutifully continues to scribble down her notes. 

 

“Were you ever in an intimate relationship before these sexual encounters?”

 

This is a question Stella doesn't expect. She figured Charlotte would have to come up at some point, she just didn't expect it to come so soon. What even were they, anyway? She and Charlotte were just two kids who moved too quickly for their ages and ended up getting heartbroken for it. 

 

“Technically, yes.”

 

“Technically?”

 

“It was the 80s, we didn't label relationships as such, but yes, I was in an intimate relationship,” she explains. 

 

“And how did it end?”

 

Stella looks down into her lap, knotting her fingers together and trying to focus on her breathing in order to answer this question without telling her everything.

 

“She left for another boarding school. We never spoke again.”

 

Her therapist just nods again and writes that down. Stella wonders if she will ask for elaboration, and she hopes not because she really wasn't prepared to go down that rabbit hole today. 

 

“So, besides the food restriction, and the sex, what else was difficult about that summer?”

 

Stella sighs. That's not really much of a safer topic than the one they were already on, and normally she would just ignore the question, but they still have at least 20 minutes left in the session. 

 

“It was the first summer I spent at home without my father.” 

 

“You've mentioned previously that he died when you were 14? So, you didn't come back to the house for summer vacation until after you graduated for boarding school?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What made you not go back before that?”

 

Stella shakes her head before saying, “There were multiple reasons.”

 

“Such as?”

 

“My mother, for one. And that house is just...it was too big for just me,” she sucks in a breath as she pauses before continuing, “too many memories.”

 

Her therapist narrows her eyes for a second in contemplation and Stella wants to ask what she said to create that reaction in her. She holds her tongue just long enough for her to speak again. 

 

“You just unloaded a lot of different things in those three sentences, do you realize that?”

 

Stella nods and says, “Yes.”

 

“Which would you prefer we talk about? Your father or your mother?”

 

Stella chews on the inside of her cheek and looks up to the ceiling again, analyzing the pattern of the white paint splashed across it. Does she really want to talk about either of those things right now? Wouldn't it just be better to pretend like she had no problems with them at all? Wasn't there a specific goal she was set out to complete when she was assigned to this in the first place?

 

“I'm not sure how relevant either of them are to this situation.” 

 

“Every aspect of your life is important to discuss,” she explains, “We still have some time. We could talk about something else, if you prefer.”

 

Stella makes a small huff of a laugh and says, “Nice weather we’re having today.”

 

Her therapist rewards her with a smile, but Stella can feel the disapproval behind it and can see it in her eyes. That is not what she wanted to hear. 

 

“I meant something about you, Stella.”

 

Stella wants nothing more than to leave, to avoid sharing more about herself, but she has run out of places in the room to stare. She has no choice but to look at the woman across from her and talk about her feelings. And it is excruciating. 

 

“We can talk about my mother, I suppose,” she says, chewing on her bottom lip.

 

“Okay, tell me about your relationship with her.”


	5. Chapter 5

The bus ride home from school is always the best time to think. Stella feels like she could solve all the world’s problems from her window seat as she considers her situation. She couldn't have possibly imagined the look he had been giving her, the way he seemed to undress her with his eyes whenever she spoke. A long time ago she never would have even entertained the idea of him, a professor, a man maybe twice her age, but the bus seems to be making her brave.

 

_ I'm a different girl than I was back then _ , she thinks,  _ we are now both adults _ .

 

12 more seconds and she would have given in, turned back around to see if he was serious about his proposition, but the bus makes her decision for her. It stops at her usual stop and she forces herself down the steps. She’ll make her final decision on the bus tomorrow.

 

If the bus is inspiration, then the street is oppression because her mind is completely silent as she takes in the lights along the sidewalk. By stepping off the bus, her foot has pressed the reset button of her mind located on the concrete and it seems to be rebooting slower than she would have liked. 

 

She needs her entire brain power to comprehend and deal with the situation she sees before her eyes. There are three people standing in front of her house, a woman she recognizes, a man she doesn't, and a girl that must be ten years younger than her. Her perfectly natural blonde hair falls on her shoulders in soft ringlets and Stella finds herself feeling jealous. Because her mother is the only one of those three that she recognizes and this girl is everything her mother ever wanted in a daughter. Everything she wasn't. 

 

She watches as her mother notices her and gestures for the man and the child to get back in the car. Stella wonders if she’ll notice if she just turns around and goes back to the bus stop, but instead she slows down and keeps eye contact with her the entire way. Her mother seems to freeze, as if Stella pressed pause on a television screen, and doesn't come back to life until Stella is a foot away. 

 

“Stella, darling!” She coos and pulls Stella into a very awkward and unusual hug. 

 

“Mother.”

 

Her mother kisses her on both cheeks and holds onto her shoulders as if pretending to look her over. 

 

“You've grown!”

 

“Well, it has been three years.”

 

Stella can see the strained smile on her face, as if she finds it difficult, and she realizes it is. She's putting on a show for those people she just shooed into the car and Stella thinks she understands why. 

 

“The door was locked when I got here, Anna must be out, and my key didn't seem to work.”

 

“I had the locks changed when I moved back.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Stella looks at her and then towards the car, where that perfect little girl is staring at her, fascinated by this wild beast. She has the overwhelming urge to yell at her to run, don't let this evil woman ruin you too, she’ll take everything you have. Instead, she turns back to her mother and says, “Would you like to come inside?”

 

“Yes, it's a bit cold out.”

 

That is the farthest thing from the truth, considering it's August, but Stella simply leads the way up the stairs and unlocks the door before stepping aside to allow her mother entrance. 

 

“I see you've rearranged--”

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

She fakes a laugh, as if it's obvious. “I'm here to see you!”

 

“What do you want?” Stella paraphrases, crossing her arms over her chest.

 

“I wanted to see how you are, how your studies went--”

 

“If you really wanted to know that, you would have been at my graduation, or come here months ago.”

 

“Why are you being so difficult?”

 

Stella simply sets her jaw and stares into her eyes, refusing to answer anymore of her asinine questions before she finds out what her mother really wants. It's always been this way. They make small talk and then her mother punishes her or yells at her, or sends her off to boarding school. 

 

She stares back at Stella, her eyes equally cold and lets out a harsh breath. She stands up a bit straighter, as if to make herself look bigger somehow and finally speaks. 

 

“I would like to buy this house from you.”

 

Stella laughs. It's loud and it's short and it's fake and she doesn't care that her mother flinches.

 

“That's hilarious, considering you never wanted to be in it before.”

 

“Well, I want it now.”

 

“For your new little family out there? No, I'm not selling you my house.”

 

“You can live with us.”

 

Stella laughs again. “No.”

 

“This was my house before you even existed, and you have the audacity--”

 

“And now it’s my house, and I can guarantee you can’t afford it.”

 

“Oh please, Stella, like you could be able to afford this house if he hadn’t--”

 

Stella scoffs, shaking her head. “What the fuck are you even playing at? You think you can just come in here and try and sweet talk me into giving up the only place I have to live just so you can start your brand new little family out there? I don’t think so.”

 

“Stella, you know as well as I do that I should have gotten this house.”

 

“No, actually, I don’t know that.”

 

Stella watches as her mother’s face starts to turn red, her anger threatening to boil over like lava, but stands her ground. 

 

“This house is too big for one little, selfish girl, Stella. It deserves to be used to its full potential,” she says. She speaks slowly, and her voice is so cold that Stella swears she can see her breath freezing as it leaves her mouth.

 

She says the next thing without even truly considering it, because the decision making portion of her brain turn off the minute she stepped off that bus. 

 

“Then maybe you should have done that when you had the chance.”

 

Her mother’s face turns to ice, like her breath, and she all but stamps her foot as her eyes narrow dangerously at Stella. She hasn’t gotten her way, and Stella wonders if she thinks that this will not be the last time they have this conversation. She purposefully makes her own face go blank and stares back at the sheet of ice that is her mother’s expression. No matter what she thinks, Stella will never back down. Not anymore. 

 

Her mother takes two steps toward her, and Stella is reminded of all those princess movies with the evil step-mothers and witches as her heels click dangerously on the floor. Without taking her eyes off Stella, she reaches into the purse on her perfectly dressed shoulder and pulls out a piece of paper. Before Stella even has a chance to read it, she can tell by just the quality of the paper what it will say. 

 

“I hope you will make the effort to leave this house and come to my wedding,” she says, before turning and heading out the door to her new, perfect family. 


	6. Chapter 6

“And did you go to her wedding?”

 

Stella makes a small smile. “Of course I did. If only to make her day more miserable.”

 

“Was your relationship with her always so miserable and argumentative?”

 

Stella purses her lips in thought, thinking back to the last bad year she had with her mother. She had recently died from alzheimer's, and despite not being very close with her, the loss was still hard. 

 

“I guess there were times when we didn’t despise each other. The last year that I spent with her, before she died, she used to tell me stories about little things that she and I would do together when I was younger. Some of the things I can remember, although fleetingly, and the other things I imagine she did with Olivia, but her mind just thought it was me.”

 

“Olivia is your step-sister?”

 

“If we must call her that, yes.”

 

“You didn’t get along with her?”

 

“We never really interacted.”

 

Her therapist flips through her notes for a second and says, “You said earlier that you felt jealous of Olivia when you first saw her, that she was everything you weren’t. What did you mean, specifically?”

 

Stella picks at the skin on her fingers, buying time and choosing her words carefully. 

 

“She was well put together in a way that seemed effortless and natural. She was beautiful as a child, and she’s beautiful now, but at the time she just seemed perfect, and it was obvious that she was the daughter my mother wanted. I knew it by the way she looked at her that day...she never looked at me that way.”

 

“In what way?”

 

Stella chews on her cheek and blinks a few times. “With pride.”

 

Stella hears her take in a sympathetic breath, and she almost tells her to shut up before she even speaks. She refrains, not wanting to be rude considering this woman is being so kind.

 

“You know, Stella, perfect is not a real term.”

 

“Of course it is, it’s in the dictionary,” she quips and smirks at her therapist.

 

She knows she’s deflecting, and her therapist knows it too, but somehow they both know she can’t really stop herself from doing it. 

 

“I just mean that people may seem like they are perfect, but they are just as flawed as you or I,” she continues. 

 

Stella nods. “I know.”

 

“Do you really know? You were eighteen and you compared yourself to an eight year old by assuming she was well put together. Appearances are not all they seem.”

 

“In my mother’s eyes, she was perfect. And at the time, that’s all that mattered to me,” Stella murmurs. Then suddenly, she says, “Why are we talking about my eighteen-year-old thought processes? I assumed I was just here for a regular psychological evaluation.”

 

Her therapist nods her head. “Yes, that is true.”

 

Stella waits for her to continue, but when it’s clear that she won’t, she responds, “But?”

 

“But, I think you have some underlying issues that we need to further discuss.”

 

Stella sinks back into her chair a little bit. 

 

“So, I failed the evaluation.”

 

“No, I just think you would benefit from further therapy sessions. More therapy can’t really hurt anyone, right?”

 

Surprisingly, Stella finds herself agreeing and signs up for another session the following week. 


	7. Chapter 7

“I’ve always seemed to be able to read people’s feelings towards me,” Stella says the next week, “...is that unusual?”

 

She back to staring at the green jello walls, but somehow, this week, they are more calming than irritating. Her therapist shakes her head.

 

“I’m not sure, I haven’t come across it often.”

 

Stella nods. She always wondered if this was something that everyone had, but just refused to talk about it. As she grew older, she realized that wasn’t the case.

 

“Why do you think I have this ability?” she asks.

 

Stella watches as her therapist shrugs, her dark hair bending with her shoulders, her pretty little nose scrunching up just a bit.

 

“Tell me why you think you have it.”

 

Stella chews on her lip thoughtfully, trying to remember when it started.

 

“I assume it comes from being a people-pleaser.”

 

Her therapist writes, she waits for her to respond and isn’t disappointed.

 

“But you’ve had it all your life?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So, you were born a people-pleaser?”

 

Stella chuckles. “Evil is made, not born, is that what you’re getting at?”

 

“Perhaps. Was there a reason you brought this ability to my attention today? Am I giving off something you are uncomfortable with?”

 

“No, I was just...evaluating myself,” Stella says, looking off out the window.

 

It’s cloudy today, and Stella vaguely wonders if she will have to take a cab home in the rain instead of walking.

 

“You seem to be very self-aware for someone who has only been in therapy once. Usually that skill isn’t honed until at least four sessions in.”

 

“Are you supposed to be telling me this? Isn’t that like a magician giving away their secrets?”

 

Her therapist shrugs again, and Stella wonders how this woman became even more sassy in the one week she was away.

 

“I’ve had a lot of time to think,” she says, eventually.

 

Her therapist jots something down on her legal pad. Stella finds that this act, while intimidating before, is a useful way to determine when she is on the right topic. She can almost use her therapist’s notes as a way of predicting her next question. Which is why Stella is not surprised when her therapist asks, “What do you mean by that?”

 

“I have a lot of down time.”

 

“And by down time, you mean…”

 

“Alone time.”

 

Her therapist nods and writes something else down.

 

“Isn’t it illegal to coerce thoughts and feelings onto your clients?” Stella jokes.

 

“It’s not coercion if it’s how you actually feel.”

 

“Which is what?”

 

“You’re very self-aware, you tell me. What was the first word that came into your head when you thought about your ‘down time’?”

 

Stella pauses. “Alone.”

 

“And what was the feeling associated with it?”

 

Another pause. “Loneliness.”

 

“See? You came up with that all on your own.”

 

“Well, when one thinks of the word ‘alone’, one tends to feel loneliness.”

 

“Only if that person isn’t completely comfortable with themselves when they are alone. Some people don’t feel loneliness when they are at home by themselves after a long day of work,” she says.

 

She stares into Stella’s eyes and for a moment their gazes seem to battle, her therapist daring her to dispute what she just said. Stella finds that she can’t because a part of her knows she is right. Damn it. Their battle ends as her therapist looks down at her legal pad again. Stella watches as her fingers on her free hand twitch and the other flies across the page.

 

“What are you usually feeling when you initiate sexual contact with a stranger?”

 

Stella smiles, “I know you want me to say loneliness or something similar, but that’s just not the case.”

 

“Okay, then tell me what you feel.”

 

“Sexual arousal.”

 

Her therapist laughs and pinches the bridge of her nose. Stella tries and fails to hide her grin, very pleased with herself, even though she can feel her therapist is not amused.

“Is there a reason you are fighting me so much today?”

 

Stella purses her lips, noticing that her therapist seems to be moving on to a different subject. “I thought we were supposed to be staying on topic.”

 

“Not if you are going to be combative about it.”

 

Stella presses her lips into a line, realizing she has maybe gone too far. She raises her hands in surrender and then indicates with her hand for her to go on. Her therapist nods, her eyebrows raised in slight surprise.

“Thank you. Okay, so besides the sexual arousal, what are you thinking or feeling when you initiate sexual contact with a stranger?”

 

Stella sobers more before responding by taking a few deep breaths.

 

“The sex is sort of a means to an end.”

 

The other woman’s eyes go wide before she takes note of the response.

 

“What do you mean by that?”

*********

 

It is a month into her “Non nuclear family studies” class when he starts talking about the Mosuo women of China. He had been looking right at her when he introduced them, almost as if he was only speaking to impress her. Little did he know that she would form a sort of fascination for this society.

 

“They are considered one of the last matriarchal societies in China, and, let's be real, the rest of the world.”

 

There is a small chuckle from the crowd and Stella participates in, but she is intrigued. He goes into detail, explaining their religion, where they are located, and some of their traditions. She hangs on every word, wanting to know everything about this tribe of strong women.

 

“They practice something called ‘walking marriage’, which basically means that there isn't actual marriage. If the man and the woman express mutual attraction, then the woman may give permission for him to visit her for sex. These are called sweet nights, and then the man is expected to leave in the morning. Which, from my experience, is what every woman in America wants.”

 

More chuckles.

 

“Sometimes, the purpose of these sweet nights are to procreate, but I think it's really just a way for the women to get out their sexual frustration.”

 

Stella isn't sure why, but this idea of a sweet night makes her feel excited and hopeful. She realizes that she has participated in sweet nights multiple times in the past, but they weren’t always at night and they usually didn't last long. She feels validated, like the things she has done in the past are okay if this Chinese society was doing it too. And suddenly her day seems a little brighter.

 

Her professor looks at the clock and then back to the class.

 

“Okay, we are running out of time, so we will just end it here. See you all next time. Stella, can I see you in my office?”

 

She made the decision on the bus today that if he propositioned her, she would refuse, a decision she had made two days ago, and then had changed her mind yesterday, and then change it again today. But now, as he watches her cross the room, and the discussion that happened in class today, she knows she won't refuse him.

 

Which is how she finds herself sitting on his desk with him between her legs. She holds onto his shoulders as he breathes heavily in her ear and pumps his hips. They are both fully clothed and he occasionally murmurs in her ear about how beautiful she is. She wraps her legs around him, pulling him closer, deeper, harder, and digs her heels into his ass. He comes fast, and presses his forehead into her shoulder, grabbing her by the hips and pulling her closer to him.

 

“Fuck, you feel so good.”

 

She doesn't respond, just leans her head against his. He is already softening within her and she knows that she has no chance of coming at all. He pulls out almost recklessly, and she hisses from the pain, but he doesn't even care or respond. He kisses her cheek as he zips up his pants, helping her off the desk.

 

“Again, next class?” He asks.

 

She finds herself nodding. She doesn't want to refuse him anymore.


	8. Chapter 8

The feel of the waiting room is tense. There really is no other way to describe it. It's tense with excitement and it's tense with nervousness, but either way the air is tense and Stella feels like she's suffocating.

 

“Gibson, Stella?”

 

There is a woman with kind eyes standing in the doorway that leads to the back. She is wearing scrubs and a gentle smile spreads across her lips when Stella stands in response. She leads her to a back room, where she takes her blood pressure, temperature, weight, all the normal stuff for check ups, and she just sort of stands and does what she's supposed to while she stares into space. The nurse doesn't really talk to her, seeing that Stella wants to be silent. She can feel that the woman is dying to speak, but doesn't give her a way in. She eventually leaves the room after helping her up into the chair with the stirrups. She refused to put her legs up until the doctor actually gets there.

 

The ten minutes that Stella is in the room alone seems to drag on. She has other appointments to attend today, her one day off from school work, and she would rather not sit in this room all day long.

 

Suddenly, the door opens and in walks the doctor.

 

“Stella?”

 

She nods.

 

“I'm Dr. Claire Gibson. How weird, right?” she says, smiling.

 

Stella smiles back, finding that she doesn't feel threatened or uncomfortable being around this woman even though it's been a few seconds.

 

“Odd, indeed,” Stella responds and the woman makes a small laugh.

 

“Okay, so, let's do the routine questions, shall we? Is this your first time?”

 

Stella just nods.

 

“Okay. Question one, are you sexually active?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Have you had multiple partners?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“How many would you say?”

 

This question gives Stella pause, because somewhere along the way she lost count. She squints a little and looks over to the side as she thinks. Her doctor wants patiently.

 

“Can you give me a range, maybe? Somewhere between 20 to 40?”

 

“That’s a large range,” Stella murmurs, “but yes.”

 

“Have you or any of your partners had a sexually trasmitted disease?”

 

“I'm not sure if they did, but I haven't.”

 

“Okay, when was the last time you had your menstrual cycle?”

 

“Two weeks ago.”

 

“And the last time you had sex?”

 

“Three days ago.”

 

“Good, alright, so let's get on with the show.”

 

The pap smear is painless but uncomfortable and Stella just stares up at the ceiling as it happens. Occasionally her doctor makes small talk with her, talking about what University she is attending, her field of study, and potential future options. And if the woman is shocked by the amount of partners Stella has had, she doesn't show it, which Stella appreciates.

 

“Okay, all done. We should have these results in a few days, and if anything comes back abnormal, you will receive a call.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

The doctor guides her back to the waiting room and pats her on the shoulder. “See you next year!”

 

It's only two days later when Stella receives the voicemail on her answering machine.

*********

“You were trying to get pregnant.”

 

It's not a question, it's barely a statement. And while that wasn't what was going through her mind at the time of each sexual act, she realizes that was the intention now that she can look back on it with a more stable mindset. She wanted to get pregnant.

 

“Yes, that was the intention, although I didn't realize it until now.”

 

“A means to an end.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Her therapist seems to be thinking as she looks down at her legal pad, as if she isn't sure what to write exactly.

 

“What made you want to have a baby?”

 

It's a question she has thought about often, ever since that phone call. At that time in her life she was just a giant mess of emotions, but now, after having some thought about it, she thinks she knows. There were so many reasons.

 

“I...I think I wanted to...prove I wasn't my mother. And...I was lonely. I guess I was thinking if I had my own child, and I raised them correctly, they would always stay with me...and love me. I wouldn't be alone anymore.”

 

Surprisingly, Stella feels tears spring to her eyes, and they do not go unnoticed by her therapist. It's a thought she has had before but not one she has spoken aloud before. And she knows it's true, knows that she only wanted a baby to use it for her own selfish needs of fulfillment and validation, and she kind of hates herself for it. The baby wouldn't ask for that or want that, but if Stella had been able to have a baby then, she knows she would have forced it into that life unfairly. Like her mother did to her.

 

Her therapist holds out a tissue box for her as the hot tears roll down her cheeks.

 

“What are you thinking?”

 

Stella shakes her head and wipes her face daintily.

 

“I was just thinking that it was selfish of me to want to do that. It wouldn't be about the child...it would just be about me. And children shouldn't be brought into this world just to please their parents.”

 

Her therapist nods. “The fact that you said that shows how much you have grown since then. Do you still want a child for that reason?”

 

Stella tilts her head from side to side. “In some ways, yes. But, I would still want to be there for them when they need me...and I think I would be able to let them go when they wanted to leave.”

 

“I assume you are still sexually active for that reason?”

 

Stella smiles, as if she is sharing a private joke with herself.

 

“Back then, I was. But now…”

 

The look on her therapist’s face goes from listening to sad understanding.

 

“They called because you can't have children.”

 

Stella nods matter-of-factly. “Yes.”

 

“And how do you feel about that?”

 

“I was more upset about it then, although I didn't know why, but now it's been years...it's still a little painful, but I'm mostly over it.”

 

“And now, all you do is work. How does one go from anthropology to being a police officer?”

 

“Oh...that's an interesting story,” Stella says, with a grin.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry this update took so long. I hope you all are sticking with me, and this one is going to be a longer chapter to make up for the wait. I promise I haven't forgotten about this, I just kind of lost Stella's voice a little bit, but I think I've finally got it back! Enjoy :)

By some miracle junior year of University, with Stella halfway through her second degree, she meets one of the most beautiful boys she has ever seen. Elijah had all the classic features of a Scotsman, bright red hair, deep green eyes, freckles all over his tall, lean body. Had he not been such a gentleman, Stella thinks they would have made a beautiful couple, the red complimenting her dark blonde, his green eyes challenging her icy blues. 

 

The first time she sees him, he’s sitting in the front row of her Anatomy class and his profile reminds her of her father, a man she tries not to think about. The rest of him is so different. He’s skinny, but his arms are muscular, and his freckles are just as prominent on his nose as if it were the middle of July and not January. While she doesn’t normally sit in the front row for classes, she’s drawn to him and takes the empty seat next to him. He seems shy, giving her a double take out of the corner of his eye but not saying a word. 

 

“Mind if I sit here?” she asks him.

 

He shakes his head, looking at her with his eyes wide. 

 

Uncharacteristically, Stella sticks her hand out for him to shake. 

 

“I’m Stella,” she says. 

 

Reluctantly, he takes her hand, his wide green eyes trained steadily on her fingers.

 

“Elijah,” he responds. 

 

She gives him a small smile. “It suits you.”

 

Not long into the lecture, she notices that he is furiously scribbling notes as if his entire life depends on it, and she wonders if he is extra studious, or genuinely thinks he needs all this information to pass. It’s only the first day. 

 

For a moment he catches her curious eyes on him and he looks scared. She simply holds his gaze, then gives him a small smile, as if to say everything was going to be okay. Only when he responds with a smile of his own and looks away does she realize she might have made her first friend at University, ever. 

*********

He insists they eat every morning, forcing her to meet him at a cafe before classes. By the time she has walked through the door, he has her coffee sitting in front of her chair, and half of his breakfast sandwich gone. She can tell by the hunch of his shoulders, and the fact that he couldn’t wait to eat until she got there, that he must be anxious about something. They had only known each other for a few weeks, but he wasn’t one to hold back on information about himself. She knew almost everything about him by their third meet up. 

 

“Elijah, you need to relax,” she says as she sits.

 

He shakes his head. “I can’t.”

 

“You will pass this test. It’s only the first one of the semester, how difficult can it be?”

 

“Very, when you don’t know any of the information,” he mutters.

 

She scoffs. “That’s an exaggeration.”

 

“Oh yeah? Try me,” he says.

 

“Alright, where is your femur?”

 

“In your arm.”

 

Stella closes her eyes, trying to convince herself she imagined him saying that. “No. How do you not know where--”

 

“Fuck! See? I don’t know anything!”

 

She shushes him. “Elijah--”

 

“I’m not good at this! I’m a history person, I like to read, but no, my father insists I join the family business--”   
  


“Ridiculous,” Stella mutters.

 

“Stella, you have to help me.”

 

“I’m not taking your test for you,” she jokes.

 

“Shut up, I mean as a tutor.”

 

“You do know I’m in psychology, not biology, right?”

 

“Oh please, like you don’t have a 4.0 GPA right now!”

 

“Actually, I don’t--”

 

“You’re doing better than I am, and that’s all that matters. Please, Stella!”

 

She sighs. “Fine.”

 

“Thank you!”

 

“But, you’re studying at my house, I don’t want to deal with your father--”

 

“Deal! Me neither, to be perfectly honest. He’d probably ridicule me for being tutored by a girl anyway.”

 

“Charming,” Stella mutters.

 

He laughs. “I’ll say.”

 

“Tonight, we will meet at the library and walk to my house together after classes.”

 

“Thank you, so much, Stella,” he says, and leaps out of his chair to hug her. 

 

“That’s what friends are for,” she says into his large, soft shoulder. 

*********

“I can’t believe I’ve never been to your house before,” Elijah says, for the third time, as they are three blocks away. 

“Well, it’s not as impressive as your family mansion, why wouldn’t I want to stay at yours instead?” she grins.

“I’ll give you one good reason,” he says and cocks an eyebrow knowingly.

“Fair point.”

“Also, it’s  _ your  _ house, no parents to bother you, or walk into your room when you’re naked or something.”

“That is true, I have had many gentlemen callers in my bed because of it,” she says. She’s joking, of course, she has never let anyone she fucks into her house. She’s never had anyone over, period. Elijah is special, and she simultaneously hopes he does and doesn’t know that.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” he chuckles, “You’re very beautiful.”

She’s not entirely sure how to respond to that, but the statement almost stops her in her tracks. It’s been two and a half months and that is the most he has ever expressed about her looks, and it kind of hurts a bit that it was a throwaway statement. Like it’s no big deal that a boy that attractive just called her beautiful.

“Thank you,” she responds sincerely. 

“Especially the hair, guys are suckers for blondes,” he says, and for a second his face looks like he regrets saying it. 

“Oh? I thought it was just my tits,” she grins, and he laughs, the tension broken between them. 

“You know, you’re not too bad yourself, why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

Elijah just shrugs. “I’ve never had one.”

She does stop at that, turning towards him and squinting.

“Are you serious?”

He nods sheepishly.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s true.”

Stella shakes her head. “We should change that.”

“Nah, that’s okay.”

“What, are you afraid?”

“Not afraid, just slightly--”

“Hey, thanks for meeting me, guys!” a voice interrupts. 

They were so engrossed in their conversation that they hadn’t noticed a girl approaching them from behind. For a second, Stella considers telling her to mind her own business, but then she really get a good look at her. 

The first thing Stella thinks when she sees her is that she looks so ordinary. The girl quickly walks towards them, falling in line with their stride, straight brown hair flying behind her. She’s wearing a school uniform, something similar to what Stella had to wear in high school, and she couldn’t be more than 18. She wonders if Elijah knew her and said something to her about their being a party at Stella’s, something she had seen multiple times in movies and dreaded the idea, but she’s fairly certain Elijah would never do that. She’s about to ask who she is, looking to Elijah, when she notices the man across the street over his shoulder, just standing and staring at the three of them. She reacts quickly. 

“No problem, we would have got here sooner, but someone had to pee,” she says, and looks pointedly at Elijah like he did something wrong.

He has no idea what’s happening, just looks back and forth between Stella and their new friend.

“Uh...yeah, sorry.”

“I told him there was a bathroom at the library, but he didn’t want to listen,” Stella continues. 

When she looks again, the man is standing in the same place, head turned in their direction, staring at the girl. He looks like any ordinary man, average height, slight beer belly pushing out his jacket, baseball cap on his head. She can’t really see his face at this distance, but Stella feels like he had no expression. She knows that she wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a line up even if her life depended on it, and that scares her more than she expects.

They round the corner before the girl finally speaks again. 

“I’m sorry, but that man had been following me for almost 12 blocks,” she says. 

Elijah perks his head and turns around to look, but of course he’s already too late to the game. “What man?”

“Well, he’s gone now,” Stella says, “but, you should probably stick with us.”

“Yes, thank you. Are you two university students?”

“Yep, we were just headed to mine for dinner and studying, if you’d like to join.”

The girl’s face lights up like this is the best news she’s ever gotten. Stella notices she is pretty skinny, and she wonders if this girl gets regular meals or if she was just born small. 

“Sure, thank you! I’m Rachel, by the way,” she says, holding out her hand as they walk. 

“Stella, and this handsome fellow is Elijah,” she shakes Rachel’s hand. 

“Hi,” Elijah waves. 

“My house is just up this street a bit,” Stella says. 

She wants to point to indicate where they are headed, but a sudden chill runs down her spine. She quickly looks over her shoulder, checking her surroundings, wondering why she feels like she is being watched. Sure enough, the man has just rounded the corner, following in their exact footsteps. He seems to be walking normally, but when he realizes he has caught Stella’s eye, he speeds up a bit. 

“Don’t look, but he’s still following us. Let’s pick up speed a bit,” she says, quietly.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Elijah mutters. 

In a boldly uncharacteristic Elijah fashion, he wraps one arm around Rachel’s shoulders and pulls her closer. She just looks blankly ahead, on a mission, and Stella wonders how she could be so unaffected by Elijah’s beauty. I guess there is always a time and a place for such things. 

In no time, the three reach Stella’s stoop and she pulls her keys out of her pocket quickly as they trot up the steps. Before she can even unlock the door, however, Anna is pulling it open and greeting them loudly in her Irish accent.

“Hello, my darlings! Come in, come in, Mama made you all a feist!”

She pulls them inside, shuts the door quickly and does up the locks. 

“Did you know you were being followed?” she asks Stella.

“He was following her first,” Stella says, nodding, “this is Rachel, and my friend Elijah, whom I’ve been telling you about.”

“You must be Stella’s mom,” Rachel says, holding out her hand.

“She’s my nanny,” Stella says before Anna can respond. 

Anna shakes her hand. “Nanny, housekeeper, cook, mother, all the same.”

“Anna, I would like for you to stay here tonight, I know you don’t normally, but I’ll put the guest room together for you,” Stella says, looking out the window only to see that the man is still there. He is standing outside her front gate, facing the street as if he wasn’t waiting for Rachel to walk out again. 

“Okay, love.”

“Why, what’s happening?” Rachel asks.

“He’s not going way, and it’s getting dark. I don’t want anyone to leave this house alone with him out there.”

“What if he tries to get in here?” Elijah asks. 

“There is only one door into this house, barely any windows, no back yard, so if he tries to get in, we will know.”

“Alright, you lot, quit your fussin’ and get to the dining room. I didn’t slave all day just for your food to be cold when you eat it,” Anna says, and guides them away from the man in the front yard.

*********

Stella had never had a slumber party before, unless she counted boarding school with Charlotte, which she doesn’t. In fact, she avoids that topic entirely, but as she sits here with Elijah and Rachel, she is reminded of all those long nights doing homework under the unsubstantial glow of her string lights where she questioned whether she would go blind before falling asleep. Those weren’t slumber parties, that’s for sure, not when it was just the two of them and the night usually ended with them cuddling in the same bed. Those definitely wouldn’t be considered normal slumber parties. However, because of her inexperience with them, she’s not entirely sure if this slumber party can be considered ‘normal’ either. 

They are sitting in Stella’s bedroom, the white walls and bare minimum of furniture clearly shouting Stella’s lack of presence in this room. Sometimes she wonders if she’s even present on this earth, so of course her presence is lacking in this room as well. There are no pictures, no trinkets, nothing out of place, almost like a hotel room. If either of her friends notice, they don’t mention it, for which Stella is greatful. Their books are scattered around the room, open and overflowing with knowledge, laid out carefully on Stella’s bed and on her floor. Among the books are dozens of flashcards, all covered with Elijah’s quick scrawl of terms he needs to memorize in just four short days. Rachel watches fascinated from her spot on Stella’s king sized bed as Stella and Elijah spar back and forth with terms and corrections. It’s all rapid fire, as if they are in sync, until Elijah can spit out the terms faster than Stella can ask the question. 

“Now, onto the brain,” Stella says, switching out decks. 

“Ugh, no, can we take a break?”

“No.”

“Stellaaa,” he whines. 

Rachel looks back and forth between them, as if watching a rousing tennis match. 

“No, you need to get this, it’s your worst topic.”

“The entire class is my worst topic,” he mutters.

“You can’t think like that,” Stella says, shaking her head.

“Stella, please. Like a ten minute break. Come on.”

  
Stella looks at him and then Rachel over her cards. Elijah’s eyes are wide and puppy like while Rachel looks on, amused. 

“Okay, fine.”

Elijah cheers and Rachel laughs. 

“Don’t stop, I was thoroughly entertained,” she says.

“Yeah, well, my brain hurts,” Elijah says.

“Stella, do you really know all this stuff?”

Stella shakes her head, but before she can say anything, Elijah is speaking for her. 

“She’s lying, she is a genius. It’s only her junior year and she already has a degree.”

Rachel’s eyes widen as she looks at Stella, star struck, and suddenly Stella wants to disappear from the room. 

“Really? In what?” she asks. 

“Anthropology,” Stella says.

“That’s cool! What are you working on now?”

“What  _ isn’t _ she working on now?” Elijah says.

“Elijah, stop--”   
  


“What? I’m in awe of you. How do you even have the time or the money?”

An icy chill settles over the room at this question, and Stella can see some of the light leave both of their faces. Her pause is a little too long and she can feel them getting nervous. She’s been backed into a corner and she knows she can’t get away from this question. She wants to lie, but she can’t, not to the only two friends she’s ever really had.

“My father paid for my education in advance. It allows me to take as many classes as I wan, while most people are limited to the set amount,”she says, clinically, and shrugs.

Her friends know something serious has just been brought up, despite the nonchalant response, but Stella can tell they are afraid to asks. She wonders if she’s finally ready to have this conversation, to finally explain the pain she has gone through from his dead to the rest of the world.

“My father… was a very wealthy man,” she explains. 

“Was?” Rachel says.

Elijah gives her a look, silently begging her to take back the words that are permanent in the air, and Stella loves and hates him for it. He had never pushed her before, never questioned why she lived alone in a house that she owned while he stayed in his parent’s mansion. She loves that he doesn’t want to push her, but at the same time she wishes he hadn’t reacted that way. Now she wonders if this topic is inappropriate for a slumber party. 

“He died a long time ago,” she shrugs, like it’s no big deal, trying to hide the emotion she was going to express before Elijah reacted. She shrugs like she’s not still angry with her father, or herself. 

“I figured the education is paid for, why not get as much out of it as I can?”

Rachel shakes her head, and Stella knows that the moment has passed for her to express her feelings. In a way, she’s upset that she can’t, but at the same time, her heart slows back down to normal in her chest. 

“I wish my father would do something that great for me.”

“Yeah, all mine did was force me into his career,” Elijah mutters.

“And what’s that?” Rachel asks.

“He wants me to be a surgeon.”

Stella is so thankful when Elijah goes on his typical rant about his father. She’s heard it so many times that she could quote all of his main points back to him, but she is relieved that the conversation is no longer about her and her feelings. She’s more than willing to dive head first into someone else’s problems just to get away from dealing with her own. It makes her feel strong.

They talk well into the night, flashcards and vocab forgotten, and fall asleep on top of each other on Stella’s luxurious bed. 

*********

The light of the morning sun and the warmth of the bodies next to her wrap her in a cocoon of comfort she's grateful she doesn't have to leave. Sometime in the middle of the night, Stella had spooned up to Elijah, wrapping her arms around his skinny torso while he snored into Rachel's hair. 

She wakes up before them, untangling herself from Elijah's solid form and looking down at her new friends. Somehow this whole situation seems comfortable, no pressure to be anything else but three tired people who need comfort. His breaths are even and so are Rachel's, and Stella realizes that her quick judgement of ordinariness was perhaps inaccurate. She's damn near angelic as she sleeps, long eyelashes playing with her cheeks, her lips plump and pursed. From the one evening with them, Stella has learned almost nothing except for the fact that they are both kind hearted people who have also had it rough. She wonders if maybe her own feelings over the years have just been her over reacting, surely they had it worse than she did?

She wants to wrap herself back around them, bask in their light and their kindness to ward off the shadows in her mind. She never expected to feel so strongly for people she had only just met. 

Elijah is the first to wake up, blinking his sleepy eyes up at Stella as she tilts her head questioningly. He clumsily reaches out for her, rolling on to his back and wrapping an arm around her waist.

“C'mere,” he rasps, pulling her against him.

She complies without a fight, laying her head down on his chest and sighing. 

“Too early,” he whines.

Rachel grunts in agreement before pressing her face further in the pillow. Stella's heart warms at the sight. They both seems so comfortable, so safe, with her in her bed and she wishes they could stay this way forever. Subconsciously, Elijah threads his fingers in Stella's hair, rubbing gentle circles into her scalp that hypnotize her eyes to slide shut.

“What if I make breakfast? Would it be to early then?” Stella murmurs. 

“Biscuits?” comes Rachel's muffled reply. 

“Mmmm, biscuits,” Elijah hums. 

“More like eggs,” Stella says. 

When they don't reply, she takes that as a no. There brains are too sleepy, too tired, but that underlying sense of safety coming from them and their gentle breaths makes her heart feel so full. 

“Bacon?”

“Mmmm, bacon.”

She starts to get up, saying, “Alright, bacon it is.”

Elijah makes a noise in the back of his throat like a weird growl, tightening his grip on Stella just a bit. 

“No, stay,” he murmurs.

Stella sighs through her nose, laying back down in his surprisingly strong arms. She's not sure whether to be annoyed or infatuated. 

“Five more minutes,” she whispers. 

Eventually, they make their way downstairs, Anna making breakfast already. Stella doesn't think about the man from the day before, and neither do her companions as they make jokes over breakfast.

Little did they all know that in just a few short hours, when they finally separate, that breakfast would be the last time they were all together. Looking back on it now, had she known, Stella would have let them stay in bed much longer than 5 minutes. 

*********

This one particular morning, Stella beats Elijah to the cafe, ordering their usual before sitting down at the table. The Monday morning bustle seems to be larger than usual, more people, a larger crowd, everyone impatient for coffee or breakfast to bring them back to life. She can just barely see out of the window, a blur of a person running towards the door. 

It takes her a minute to recognize Elijah through the crowd, his eyes scanning for her before finally seeing her at their usual table. He quickly makes his way over to her, his dread and anxiety so strong that she can feel it from across the room and over the tiredness of the crowd.

“Stella,” he says, and his voice is shaky. 

“What's wrong?”

She didn't notice the paper in his hand, and she wonders if he had forgotten about it too, because it's crumpled up and he looks at it like he's surprised. He sits down as he uncrumples it loudly, sliding it slowly across the table so she can see. His hand is shaking, and when she finally sees what's on the paper, her heart drops down to her stomach. 

On the paper is a school picture of Rachel, her uniform perfect, her brown hair back into a sleek ponytail. At the top, the word “missing” screams in bold print above Rachel's smiling face. 

“Where did you find this?”

“They were posted all along the street on my walk here. Do you see the date?”

She does, and she knows it's not good. It's the day Rachel slept over with them. The day she went missing, according to the flyer. 

“We have to talk to the police,” Stella says. 

Elijah's eyes go wide with fright. “What? Why? We didn't do anything.”

“Yes, but we were the last people to see her, according to this. We have to tell them what happened.”

“What if they think we are involved?”

Stella sighs, frustrated. “If we don't tell them, they will think we are involved, it's a lose lose situation. Would you rather we have that conversation on our terms or theirs?”

“Stella, I can't get arrested!” He practically shouts. 

“Shut up, we aren't going to get arrested because we didn't do anything, you idiot. And can you shout that any louder? You're being dramatic,” she scolds him. 

He nods. “You're right, I'm sorry.”

“Look, it'll take a few hours, tops. We can just go to the police hub after classes.”

“I just don't want my dad to find out,” he sighs. 

“He won't. And if he does, say it was my fault.”

“Cuz, it is your fault.”

“Shut up,” she smacks him on the arm as she stands, “Let's go.”

*********

The lights in the interrogation room seem purposefully harsh, as if they are the main ingredient for the recipe of a confession. When she and Elijah had arrived only minutes before, it took mere seconds for the police officers to separate them. She wonders if he is doing okay.

For the moment, Stella feels calm, even if the room is empty and there seems to be a slightly nervous energy coming from behind one of the walls. Perhaps it's Elijah, and that thought alone makes her feel better, just knowing that he is close.

The door opens without warning, a man in his late 30s enters with a notebook in hand and gives her a smile.

“I am D.I. Hume, I will be handling your witness report today,” he says, extending his hand. 

“Stella Gibson,” she replies, shaking his hand. She can't help but notice how huge his hands are compared to her own. 

“So, Miss Gibson,” he says, sitting in the chair across from her on the other side of the table, “You said you had some interesting information about the Burke girl?”

She wonders for a moment if he is playing with her, trying to trip her up by using Rachel's last name because she doesn't know it. She wants to question him back, ask if that is her real last name, but figures that would be frowned upon. So she nods instead.

“Yes.”

“Okay, so let's start on the night of the 6th.”

“Well, it really started in the evening.”

He nods. “Go on.”

“My friend, Elijah, and I were walking from the bus stop to my house after leaving university for the day.”

“Last name of your friend?”

“Simmons. He came with me today to the station.”

He nods. “Right. And your address?”

“1475 Merch Street.”

“How far is the bus stop from your house?”

“Just two blocks.”

He writes all of her answers down before looking back up at her. “Okay, continue.”

“Elijah and I were about a block away from my home when the girl, Rachel, approached us. She started speaking to us as if we all were good friends, and I was slightly confused, until I noticed the man across the street, staring at her.”

“Is that significant?”

“Yes. Once we had turned the corner and entered Merch Street, she felt safe enough to tell us that he had been following her for 6 blocks.”

His eyes go slightly wide for a minute, before he schools is features back to neutral. “What did he look like?”

She can picture him so well, the creepy way he stood across the street and just moved his head to watch them and the way he sped up once he knew she saw him. But the way he was dressed and his features...she knows telling Hume about his looks isn't going to help at all. 

“He was a white male, 6 feet, slightly heavy set. He was wearing a baseball cap and a black colored light weather jacket. I couldn't see his face.”

He writes all that down then says, “Okay, go on.”

“About 5 houses away from mine, I turned back around and he had crossed the street and was now following the three of us. We rushed into my home, where the man stood outside of my house for a least 10 minutes before I forced everyone away from the window.”

“How long was he there for?”

Stella shakes her head. “I'm not sure, but when I looked again around 8, he wasn't standing there any longer.”

“And when did the girl leave?”

“Not until late the next morning. I had insisted everyone spend the night just in case he didn't actually leave.”

“And who was in the house?”

“Myself, Elijah Simmons, Rachel, and my nanny, Anna.”

“Did the girl, at any point, give any indication that she knew who the man was?”

“No, she just said he was following her. She didn't say anymore about him for the rest of the night.”

“And what did you all do that night?”

“We had some dinner, studied for a test, talked. We all fell asleep around 2 am and didn't wake up until 10:30 at least.”

“And when did the girl leave?” 

“Around 12. Elijah and I walked her down the street where we split ways, she said she was going home.”

“Did she say where that was?”

“No, I didn't think to ask.”

He nods again as he scribbles everything down. The questions were rapid fire, and Stella was surprised that she had been able to keep up, but looking back she knows she could have done better handling the situation. She's kind of disappointed in herself for not thinking to walk Rachel home. 

“And that's the last time you saw her?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, anything else?” He looks at her and she can see that he is disappointed too, like maybe he doesn't believe her. 

“No. That's it.”

DI Hume starts to stand and now it's Stella's turn to feel disappointed. She had hoped that she would get at least one word of thanks for telling her story, for being so willing to come forward and help their investigation.

“Okay, you're free to leave.”

Her eyebrows knit together. “That's it?”

He sighs. “No offense, Miss Gibson, but I don't have time for pranks. There is a girl I have to find.”

“Yeah, and I just told you that she was being followed by a man--”

“That you gave a very vague description off--”

“Well, can't you at least use that to investigate the people in her life?”

“It doesn't work like that.”

Stella scoffs. She's not sure whether to be surprised or angry at the fact that he is just throwing away her witness statement as a prank. She was in that situation and it wasn't a prank, it was scary, and this man doesn't even seem to care.

“No offense, sir, but then it seems to me like you aren't doing your job.”

His eyes go slightly wide, but now that she's started, she can't stop.

“Excuse me?”

“The police are always looking for witnesses, knocking on doors and badgering people, but when a reliable witness comes forward--”

“I don't know that you're reliable--”

“--and says that they have seen something, you just dismiss them and call it a prank? I could run this investigation better than you could!”

“I suggest you watch your tone or I will have you arrested.”

“Don't worry, I was just leaving,” she snaps, brushing past him. “I would ask you to keep me informed, but clearly you aren't going to get very far in this investigation.”

“Why do you even care, you knew her for 12 hours,” he calls down the hall after her. 

She stops in her tracks at that, but doesn't turn around. The question is simple, considering any person in her situation would not care. There was just something about that girl, something so familiar and brave that Stella felt an almost immediately kinship with her, wanting to protect her and keep her under her wing for as long as possible. So, why does she care? She doesn't know. All she knows is that she does, and she's not sure why that's such a crime.

“That doesn't mean I shouldn't care about her well being. Perhaps you should be thinking the same way,” she says, icily. 

Without another word, she turns and walks out of the hallway to greet Elijah. 

*********

For months Stella is haunted by Rachel's image, seeing her around every corner on lamp posts and in the faces of strangers. She feels extra paranoid, always watching the people around her, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man that followed them home. A few times she sees someone who looks like Rachel and she starts to call out for them, but it's never her in the end. 

They are nearing the end of the school year when Elijah finally brings her up again, staring lovingly at Rachel's missing person flyer as he speaks. 

“I hope she's okay,” he murmurs.

Stella chews her cheek, watching him look forlornly down the street before scanning her surroundings again. 

“You think she's still alive?” She asks.

He sighs. “It's weird to say but...I have this feeling that she is. And I know we only knew her for a short amount of time, but I miss her.”

Stella nods because she gets it, and it's the same thing she's been feeling for months, but she always thought that he would think she was being silly. Just as she predicted, there was no progress on the case, no word of any clues as to where Rachel was, and the more days that went by, the angrier Stella got. It's not until she's walking home with Elijah, so many months later, that she gets a brilliant idea.

“Maybe we should try to find her.”

He scoffs. “How are we gonna do that?”

“Figure out where she lives, knock on doors, I have her last name.”

“So does everyone else in this country, how is that gonna help us?”

“Why can't you just trust me?”

He stops and looks at her with his sad puppy eyes, as if she had just insulted his mother and he's not sure what to do about it.

“I do trust you, Stella…” he says, “More than anyone else in my life.”

She stares into his eyes and feels his big thumping heart through the waves in the atmosphere. He's the best friend she's ever had, and probably the only one besides Charlotte (but we don't think about her), and she wonders how someone so wholesome ended up with someone like her. 

“Then let's do this. For Rachel.”

He smiles a little and nods. “For Rachel.”

*********

Her therapist is practically folded over in half, leaning into Stella's story, more intrigued than she's ever been. Like she's reading a mystery novel as Stella speaks. 

“Did you ever find her?” She asks. 

Stella smiles to herself and looks out at the bus passing the window in the rain, thinking back.

“No...she sort of found me.”

*********

They had done enough research to find a neighborhood, but hit a wall after that. Just short of going to the police station, Stella figures, there isn't much information about Rachel anywhere. She had found her school, but they weren't allowed to give out records, not even a phone number, which they already had. 

It had been one long, exhausting summer day after another, when Stella and Elijah fell through her front door. They had been out on foot, replacing Rachel's flyers where they had been ripped down, but with Stella's phone number instead of the police. Illegal? Probably, but Stella doesn't care, she just wants to find her friend. 

“I was wondering when you would get back,” Anna says, coming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. 

“Sorry, at least it's still light outside.”

“Yeah, because it's the middle of July at 8 pm.”

“What did you make for us today, mom?” Elijah asks. He had spent enough time over at the house that he felt comfortable calling Anna “mom”, and Stella just liked to see her blush every time.

When she doesn't today, that's when she knows something is off. 

“There is...someone waiting upstairs for you two,” she says nervously. 

Elijah's eyes go wide as Stella's heart rate picks up. She's flooded with anxiety, Elijah's and her own, and they share a look between them. Had they been caught? Where the police coming to arrest them for perverting the course of justice?

Stella is the first one to turn, spinning slowly and heading towards the stairs, Elijah following behind. It's only when they have are halfway up the stairs that Stella realizes it would be odd for a police officer to wait in her bedroom, and a second wave of adrenaline floods her body.

She rushes faster up the stairs, Elijah following her pace, before sprinting down the hall and throwing open her bedroom door. 

And there she is, wearing the same outfit as before. Sitting on Stella's bed like she never left. 

“Rachel?” Elijah asks, like he can't believe his eyes. He slides into the room as Stella stands frozen and wraps Rachel up in a tight hug. 

“What are you doing here? Where have you been?” 

She let's him go and turns to Stella, meeting her eye as she stands catatonic in the doorway. 

“I have a problem.”

*********

“Where had she been?” Her therapist interrupts. 

“In the country. She said she had been living in a forest near a farm.” 

“Why did she run away?”

Stella shifts a bit in her seat, the next part of the story just a bit too uncomfortable to share. Rachel had told her and Elijah, in great detail, of all the things her father was doing to her. She had explained that she had to leave no trace of herself behind, that her father was someone working on the police force and could find any information on her if she wanted to.

“It's was a long and graphic story, but she was running away from her abusive father.”

Her therapist nods and writes a few notes. 

“Why did she show up after all that time?”

“She said she visited from time to time. She noticed we were trying to find her and she didn't want us to get in trouble, or reveal where she was. She told us to stop looking for her.”

“How did that make you feel?”

Stella squints as she thinks. “I was...relieved she was okay. I didn't like that I couldn't see her again… I'm not sure why she feels so important to me, even now. ”

“You said you felt a kinship with her, you said she was brave and strong?” She asks, flipping through her notes. 

“Yes.”

“Could it be, perhaps, she reminded you of yourself when you were her age? And you were so affected by her disappearance because in a way, she was you and you didn't get that support?”

She tilts her head in contemplation. Is that the case? Does that mean that somewhere deep down, she also thinks of herself as being brave and strong for going through all that she has? 

“That makes sense.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you don't normally see yourself as brave or strong?” Her therapist prods. 

Stella smiles to herself as she picks at her fingers. “Because I don't… I always feel like my life is out of my control, that I'm too weak to take control of things in my life. But...I guess we are all brave and strong in our own ways.”

“Like, you looking for a girl you barely knew because the police weren't trying?”

“Right.”

“And, you joining the police force to make up for the corruption within.”

Stella chuckles lightly. “Honestly, I just thought I could do a better job than that shitty D. I. I talked to.”

Her therapist laughs at that too, because even after two sessions she knows this is true. 

“So, did you and Elijah ever see Rachel again?”

Stella tries not to let the light hearted mood shift too much, but she knows there is no way to sugarcoat the ending of this story. 

“Elijah saw her one last time before they found her body,” she says, slowly. 

Her therapist frowns slightly in sympathy. “I'm sorry.”

Stella shakes her head. “No need. It still hurts a little…wondering what we could have been, but I've mostly come to terms with it. I make up for the life I couldn't save by helping others through the police force.”

“You think it's your fault that she died?”

“No, not my fault per se… I just feel like I could have helped if she had let us.”

“You wanted to save her. Like you wanted someone to save you.”

Stella twitches her lip to the side as her eyes grow a little hot. “Yes.”

*********

She had heard about it on the news, willed herself not to cry with Anna in the room with her. Her body was found just a few blocks away, obviously caught between Stella's house and her own. She wonders if her father was watching the house all along, sitting in a car down the street as he watched her and Elijah look for his daughter. It makes her feel sick.

She excuses herself and heads up to bed, only to find herself sobbing uncontrollably as she grabs a razor to take to her skin. Before she can even graze her foot, there is a pounding on her bedroom door. 

“Stella,” the voice says, and it's a whine she recognizes. 

She hides the razor in a drawer and wipes her face, hoping the tears are gone, before opening the door to Elijah. He is red faced and exhausted, his eyes dropping like he's about to fall asleep when he sees her and starts sobbing all over again. She pulls his body into her arms, cradling him like a child as he wraps his arms around her neck. 

“Shhhh,” she says, kissing his cheek.

She wishes she could do more, wishes she could take his pain but she's already so full of pain she's not even sure she could manage. It all hits her anyway, drowning her in a pool of sorrows that she can't escape with him so close. He threads his fingers into her hair, pulling her even closer than before. The next thing she knows, they are on her bed, kissing feverishly and removing each other's clothes. 

They sweat out the pain through sex, every thrust like a piston pushing air out into the world. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows he's thinking about Rachel, but that's okay because Stella is thinking about her too, how alive she was just days before, the way her hair glowed in the setting sun. Her perfect lips and long eyelashes that will no longer speak or blink again. 

He cries into her shoulder when he finishes, but somehow he keeps going until Stella gets her relief. Of course he would be so considerate, how could she ever think any different? And she knows she loves him, loves him for being pure and good and wholesome and for caring about everyone just as much as she does, that she's not even upset that he fucked her because he knew he could never fuck Rachel again. 

**Author's Note:**

> I am still working on this story after a very long period of writer's block. I recently graduated from college, and I just started getting inspired again to write this. I will try to update as often as I can. Please enjoy!!


End file.
